Off Topic

If I may diverge off the baseball path and talk football for a moment (as I often do), I'd like to offer some words on the latest NFL rule change. In previous seasons if a receiver who catches a pass was forced out of bounds by a defender prior to landing in the field of play with both feet in bounds, and the referee felt that the receiver would have landed in bounds had he not been forced out, that referee could rule that the pass was complete. (Grammar police, is that a run on sentence?) That rule is no more. Now if a receiver is out of bounds, he is out of bounds, period. I love this rule change. I hope it starts a trend of the NFL simplifying the rules of game. In recent years, I think that NFL games have started taking on the feel of game shows. (Don't even get me started on replay challenges.) Before you know it, the 4th quarter will be known as the "bonus round" that renders the rest of the game meaningless. The simpler the better. Anything that takes referee judgment calls out of the game is a good thing. (Sorry, I'll never use parentheses again.)